The Religions of Ancient Egypt and Babylonia

310 The Religions of Ancient Egypt and Babylonia

denoted the Semitic goddess; Semitised though she might be, she
continued to be essentially a Sumerian deity.
Many years ago, in my Hibbert Lectures, I first drew attention
to the fact that Istar belonged to the non-Semitic part of the
Babylonian population, and in both name and attributes was
foreign to Semitic modes of thought. The best proof of this
is to be found in the transformations she underwent when her
worship was carried by Babylonian culture to the more purely
Semitic peoples of the West. In Arabia and Moab she became
a male deity; the ideas and functions connected with her were
incompatible in the Semitic mind with the conception of a female
divinity. Even in Babylonia itself there were those who believed
[338] in a male Istar;^264 and the official theology itself spoke of an
androgynous deity, of an Istar who was at once a goddess and
a god.^265 In Canaan, where her female nature was accepted,
she was changed into a Semitic goddess; the feminine suffix
was attached to her name, and her attributes were assimilated
to those of the native goddess Ashêrah. In Assyria, too, we
can see the same process going on. The name of Istar with
the feminine termination of Semitic grammar becomes a mere
synonym of“goddess,”and, as in Canaan, the Istars, or rather
the Ashtoreths, mean merely the goddesses of the popular cult,
the female counterparts of the Baalim or“Baals.”It was only the
State religion, which had its roots in Babylonia, that prevented
Istar of Nineveh or Istar of Arbela from becoming a Canaanitish
Ashtoreth.
This was the fate that had actually befallen some of the old
Sumerian deities. In the Sippara of Semitic days, for example, the

(^264) Thus the god Tispak (the Susinak of Susa, K 92691,Rev.ii. 35) is identified
with Istar inWAI.35. 18, comp. ii. 57. 35; and Iskhara, another name of Istar,
is called a male deity with a wife, Almanâti (Strassmaier, 3901). Professor
Barton notices (Journal of American Oriental Society, 21, pp. 186-188) that
an inscription of Lugal-khaaai, an early king of Kis, is dedicated to“the king
Nana and the lady Nana.”
(^265) WAI.iii. 53. 30-9.